German software major SAP reported a 14% increase in revenues during 2012 to €16.22bn, which was mainly supported by a 16% rise in its software sales.

SAP’s was largely in part to the €390m generated by sales of Hana, a database platform that enables firms to process huge data at rapid speed.

SAP Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe said that 2012 was an outstanding year in which the firm set severalnew records.

"We achieved a breakthrough in the cloud and today SAP is the second largest cloud player in the world," McDermott said.

"Wwe overachieved on our SAP HANA revenue ambition, making SAP the fastest growing next generation database company in the market."

Hana, which is part of the firm’s ambitious push into new sectors including in-memory computing, cloud and mobile, is aimed at keeping pace with rivals like Oracle and IBM.

During the year, SAP’s operating profit declined 17% to €4.06bn due to charges associated with the $4.3bn acquisition of California-based cloud computing firm Ariba in October 2012.

SAP’s fourth-quarter revenue increased 12% to $6.69bn year-on-year while operating profit fell 5% to €1.59bn.

SAP CFO Werner Brandt said Q4 2014 is the 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit SSRS revenue growth.

" Our total revenue for the first time exceeded €5 billion in a quarter. We invested significantly in key innovations while expanding our global go-to-market activities to further strengthen our mid-term growth ambition," Brandt said.